Browning Battles On

by Peter Corris

  I watched the stars in the sky, but I'm no countryman. I couldn't tell the time by them. All they told me was that we were in the southern hemisphere, and I already knew that.

  Harry's whisper rose slightly above the noise of the jungle—dripping, rustling and creaking sounds. 'Be time to move soon. Give it ten minutes.'

  'Great,' I said. 'I'll be totally numb by then. Won't feel a thing when you lift me up and carry me.'

  He laughed softly. 'You're a laugh, Dick. Hold still.'

  He slid his rifle towards me and cut the rope with the bayonet. I stretched my arms out at my sides and rotated my shoulders a little. Everything worked. Harry was still in a sleeping position. I was cold; the fire had died down. 'I'm sure the Geneva Convention says a prisoner should have a blanket.'

  'Lieutenant Okano would use the Geneva Convention to wipe his ass, and then make you eat it. Be patient. This is the rest of your life you got on the line here.'

  I wanted a cigarette and a piss. I wanted a hot drink with alcohol in it and a steak and a bed . . . I swallowed hard and tried to get a grip on myself. We were going to raid the B52. I could find a weapon and get clear of Harry. Then I could . . . The thought of wandering around in the jungle made me shiver. To stop my teeth chattering I said the first thing that came into my head.

  'Were you really a houseboy in Honolulu?'

  'Houseboy, taxi driver, pimp, anything that'd keep me out of the fields. Man, I hated field work.'

  'How come you joined the army? Didn't you know it'd be more like field work than pimping, at least for an enlisted man?'

  'Hah, hah. I like you, Dick. I dig your sense of humour. We're going to get along fine. Tell you the truth, I'd built up a bit of a hatred for the round-eyes. Spell in the Ohahu penitentiary helped that along. I hopped over to old Nippon to kick ass.'

  'And?'

  'I hear there's a Jap unit in the US army now. That so?'

  'I don't know. Could be.'

  'Way I shoulda gone. Maybe it's not too late to change sides, huh?'

  I couldn't take much more of this. My head was swimming with possibilities of deception and deceit, and I was close to cramping up all along one side. 'If we're going, let's go,' I said.

  Harry looked around cautiously. The fires had died down; men were asleep tucked in behind rocks and under makeshift canvas and leaf shelters. They had made screens out of branches and leaves and used them partly for protection from the cool air and partly, I guessed, as camouflage. Deep snores shuddered in the warm, moist air.

  'OK,' Harry said. 'Banzai.'

  'What's that mean?'

  'It means charge, but I mean creep on our bellies like snakes.'

  That's exactly what we did—wriggled from our position near the plane, crawled past sleeping soldiers, crept through the jungle within feet of two snoring sentries and got clear of the camp. The night was dark but Harry used the flashlight sparingly to pick up the track we'd made coming through the bush a few hours back. Eventually we stopped. We'd been moving fast and I was dripping with sweat.

  'This is where we found you. Where's the B52?'

  'Jesus Christ, I don't know. I just ran away from the bloody thing. I don't even know what direction it's in.'

  Harry had left his rifle in camp but not his bayonet. He slipped it from a scabbard strapped to his thigh and put it where it had been before, at the base of my throat. 'You'd better think about it, Dick.'

  'I thought we were friends.'

  'Sure we are, as long as we're useful to each other. Your usefulness starts here. If you don't come through I might just have to claim I gutted you when you tried to escape.'

  'Harry, I . . .'

  He kept the blade near my throat and moved the flashlight beam around the clearing. 'Take a look. Must be something you remember.'

  There wasn't a thing but I couldn't just stand there. I pretended to recognise a flattened bush and pointed at it. 'That way.'

  We slogged through the jungle for what seemed like an hour. Stumbling through some undergrowth we disturbed a swarm of insects that buzzed angrily and bit me on the hands and face. I yelped and slapped at them.

  'Shut up!' Harry hissed. 'They might be after us already.'

  I ignored him. I was getting sick of this futile blundering about. I stopped. 'That'd bugger your plan, wouldn't it?'

  'Not necessarily. You're not an officer, are you, Dick?'

  'I told you. I'm a bloody civilian.'

  'That's swell. If you were an officer, Okano'd be real mad that an enlisted man killed you. It's part of his code of conduct, see. Only an officer can execute an officer. But since that don't apply—'

  'Harry—'

  'You've got five fuckin' minutes to find that plane before I show you what your insides look like.'

  I was facing him. Our heads were inches apart. I was ten inches taller and outweighed him by thirty pounds, but the bayonet made it a David and Goliath situation. I had to make a move, any kind of move, but the chances of having a windpipe to breathe through were small. I drew a deep breath.

  'Sorry, Dick.'

  'Wait.' The genuine urgency in my voice made him hesitate.

  'What?'

  I'd taken the breath in through my nostrils. 'I can smell something,' I said.

  When someone says they can smell something the automatic response is to sniff. Harry did, and Harry was a non-smoker with a much keener sense of smell than me. There was a light breeze and Harry sniffed at it like a hunting dog.

  'You're right,' he said. 'That's gasoline.'

  'Aviation fuel.' I wet my finger and held it up into the breeze, taking care to ease away slightly from the bayonet as I did so. I pointed. 'That way.'

  The bayonet slid back into its scabbard and Harry trained the flashlight in the direction I'd indicated. You could convince yourself that something had crashed through the bushes. Harry hared off, leaving me to follow, which I did, quick smart. He may have just offered to slit my throat, but in the middle of a pitch dark jungle a thousand miles from nowhere, you cling to whatever human companionship is available. We stumbled along, getting lashed in the face by creepers and tripping over tree roots. Harry hadn't had a decent feed for a month and I guess he could taste the food and drink. Whatever the reason, he set a cracking pace.

  And there it was, perched up on a rock shelf like a giant beached whale. I could see the wing I'd jumped from and I wondered how I'd had the nerve to do it. It was a long way, maybe thirty feet, down to the bush I'd landed in so safely. The smell of fuel was strong and it worried me until I remembered the steady rain earlier in the night. If an electric spark or a piece of hot metal hadn't sent the whole thing sky-high by now, it was probably safe. The questions were, did Harry know that and, if not, could I turn the knowledge to my advantage.

  'Thing's been soaked,' Harry said. 'Safe as a Waikiki cabana. Let's get up there.'

  He began scrambling up the rocks, dodging around nimbly, using his torch beam to see the next foothold. There was no way I could have made it. I didn't even want to try. The moon sailed clear of some clouds and the stars shone brightly. After floundering around in the dark for so long I was beginning to acquire reasonable night vision. I could see a way to get around the back of the plane and the rock shelf and I took it, brushing aside the damp branches and creepers. I worked my way back until I ran out of light. The overhead canopy was dense and cut visibility to zero.

  I took the torn tie from around my neck, scrabbled on the jungle floor for a few sticks, tied them together and lit them with my Zippo. As a torch it wasn't much, but the light enabled me to continue until I got clear of the heavy overhead growth and around to the back of the rock shelf. Just before the fabric and sticks flared out I saw that I had an easy climb up to the plane.

  I used the Zippo again, flicking it on and off when I needed illumination. The rock was dry and solid and the vines growing over it gave me good handholds. I pulled myself up, ribs aching, breath short, until I reached the rear door, which had been bu
ckled and almost torn out by the impact of the crash. I didn't want to be back there again, but the way things had gone there were worse places to be. I stumbled around in the dark until I located the bodies. They were cold and stiff and the clothing was soaked with blood. I flicked the lighter, searching the faces and uniforms. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. I felt like a body-snatcher and I wanted to apologise to the poor bastards whose war had been ended by thunder and lightning.

  After a while I found Major Smith of Washington. His head was at an odd angle but he was otherwise undamaged. An easy death for him, which is what you'd expect for a Pentagon man. From body-snatcher I'd graduated to grave-robber. I searched through the major's pockets, ignoring his hip flask and cigarette case for the moment. My hand closed around the cold butt of an automatic pistol. I took it out and checked the action and magazine, identifying it in the dark. Firearms I've always been good with, and the Colt .45, type B model, with its thumb safety-catch, additional grip safety and manual cocking, was as familiar to me as, well, you can guess what I had in mind. The Colt was fully loaded and I noticed something I'd experienced before—a pistol warms up very quickly in your hand.

  I moved through the plane. A little starlight was shining through the gaping hole which had been my exit hatch. I located the coats and blankets I'd thrown over the raw metal when I'd quit the plane. The smell of leaked fuel was stronger over here and I judged that whatever force it was that had looked after me all these years had been working overtime that night. The fuel tank had somehow been protected from the sparks that fly when metal scrapes on rock and wires carrying electric current short out.

  I heard a scrambling noise, muttered Japanese curses and the sound of over-taxed lungs gasping for breath. Harry's head appeared over the rock ledge. His glasses flashed in the moonlight. His fingers, cut and bleeding, clung to the edge. I pointed the .45 at his right lens.

  I clicked the lighter and held the small flame aloft so he could see the way things were. 'Come on up, Harry,' I said. 'We got some fat to chew.'

  3

  'I'm all tuckered out, buddy. Give me a hand up here.'

  'Screw you,' I said. 'Use your bayonet to give yourself some leverage. Better still, let me hear you toss it back down the rock.'

  'I let go here, I'll break something.'

  I worked the Zippo. Harry's fingers gripped the rock ledge, but the knuckles weren't turning white and the cuts weren't bleeding all that much.

  'You're lying, Harry. You've got your feet planted solid. Unbuckle!'

  One battered hand withdrew; the bayonet sheath clattered as it fell. Harry heaved himself over the ledge and lay panting just below the hole in the fuselage. He gasped a few times, spat and got a grip on the flashlight which he'd tied to his belt. The beam would have hit me in the eyes if I hadn't shaded them with my hand.

  'Douse it,' I said. 'Or put it on dim. I'm sitting up here on top of the Hershey bars with a forty-five in my hand. Show a little respect.'

  The beam dimmed. Harry got to his feet, teetering on the edge of the shelf. 'How'm I going to get up there?'

  I cocked the Colt. The sound was loud in the still night. 'You're not, unless you agree, here and now, once and for all, to call this World War Three.'

  'The fuck you mean, man?'

  'I mean us against them, Harry. Us against them.'

  By this time the night was running down and we had to be well on our way before dawn. I tucked the .45 in my belt and helped Harry up onto the wing. We went through the plane like mice in a cheese factory, nibbling at this and that. Our first collection weighed us down so heavily we had to start again, jettisoning most of the loot. We ended up with K-rations, canteens of distilled water, a compass, binoculars, two cartons of cigarettes, matches and two bottles of scotch each. Harry took a few items of clothing and a pair of boots off one of the dead airmen. I couldn't begrudge him, his feet had a lot of work ahead of them.

  I located my kitbag where I'd stowed it under my seat. It was easy to find because the seat wasn't there any more. I took out my shaving tackle and some other odds and ends. The uniform I was to wear in Australia, the brigadier-general togs, were neatly folded. My US uniform was a muddied, bloodied mess so I changed. Harry watched me impassively.

  'How old're you, Dick?'

  'Me? Thirty—'

  'The hell you are. That grey hair on your chest makes you forty plus.'

  Lucky he didn't know how much dye I had in my hair. I slipped on the jacket. Good fit. 'What's it matter?'

  'I just like to know all I can about who I'm teamed up with.'

  I ignored that. 'We'd better get their money,' I said. 'A few quid could come in handy.'

  'You're talking funny.'

  'Australian,' I said. 'In this get-up, I feel like one again.'

  It was a nasty job but we emptied all the wallets we could find and ended up with six or seven hundred dollars. We divided it fifty-fifty, neither of us liking what we were doing. Harry removed a briefcase from under the corpse of Major Smith. He opened it and took out a pearl-handled revolver. He stood with the flashlight in one hand and the gun in the other. I had money in both hands. We looked at each other.

  'Us against them,' Harry said. He stuffed the gun into the webbing pack he'd collected things in and slung the pack over his shoulder. I acted unconcerned and took a look inside the briefcase. It contained several letters in long, official-looking envelopes. I put them in my pocket and fastened my own pack.

  'You know what we have to do next, Dick, don't you?'

  'Piss off quick.'

  'Uh uh. We have to burn this sucker.'

  'Jesus, why?'

  'If my fuckin' comrades in arms find this plane they'll get boots and food and ammunition. Then they'll come after us. I figure the other parties that set out didn't make it because of poor supplies. We can't take the risk. We've got a chance with anyone we run into, but those guys back there will roll our heads like dice.'

  I couldn't argue with that. I told myself that it made no difference to the dead men and that it was only through Browning's luck that they hadn't been burnt up already. We opened a couple of bottles of paraffin oil and doused the inside of the plane with it. Harry jumped down and put the best part of a bottle around where the fuel tanks ought to be. Then he laid a trail down the rock the way I'd come up. He rejoined me and shouldered his pack. I was just strapping mine on when I spotted the medical chest. Harry nodded. I opened it, took out some quinine, salves and bandages, and we carried the chest with us down the rock.

  Harry's hand was steady as he lit a match and dropped it into the paraffin. The fire raced up the rock and we backed away into the jungle. For a second or two I thought something had gone wrong and then daylight dawned with a noise like an artillery barrage. Heat waves surged towards us; the leaves shrivelled on the trees and we buried our heads in the dirt. When I looked up it seemed that a mountain was on fire; flames leaped fifty feet in the air and the ammunition in the plane exploded in a series of rippling cracks.

  'Jesus,' I said. 'I could've been in the middle of that.' I was staring at the blaze, unable to turn away.

  Harry pulled at my arm. 'With a bit of luck they'll think you were. Better hope so. Otherwise, that crazy bastard Okano's likely to call for volunteers to go after us.'

  'You said—'

  'Just scouting the possibilities. Let's get moving.'

  We set off into the jungle with no particular direction in mind. Our method was simply to make progress by getting through the undergrowth the best way we could. Harry used his bayonet, which he'd recovered from where it had fallen, to slash away at vines and creepers. I could hear his breath rasping after thirty minutes but I didn't volunteer to take over. I was exhausted, moving like a robot and, anyway, he was doing a great job, his old field worker skills coming right back to him. I was conscious of only one thing—we were going downhill. I don't think I could've taken more than ten steps on an upgrade.

  The stars began
to pale out as the sky lightened. God knows how, but Harry kept going and I kept following him, more out of fear of being left behind than hope of ever getting out of the jungle. The sun came up quickly and the jungle began to steam around us. I tried to remember what wild animals they had in New Guinea but nothing came back to me from my schooldays. I think the only mention New Guinea ever got was as a place copra came from, and what the hell was copra? My body was drained of all strength and my mind was wandering. I stumbled on, dropping to my knees and crawling after Harry when he decided to go under something rather than round or through it. I could still hear him thwacking away at the bush.

  'Now for New Guinea, and a crack at the Japs.' The line delivered by Errol Flynn in one of his potboilers came suddenly into my head as I scrambled through the bush. I was filled with an anger that carried me on for another mile or so—I'd like to have seen that Flynn in the jungle up against my mate, Harry Kaminaga. He wouldn't have lasted ten seconds.3

  'Fuck you, Flynn,' I shouted.

  Harry stopped slashing and turned around to look at me. His entire upper body was drenched in sweat and his face was cut in a hundred places by the thorns and prickles he'd slashed through. His forefinger had slid an inch down the blade of the bayonet beyond the guard and was deeply cut. I could see the white flesh and seeping blood.

  'What?' Harry said.

  'Nothing.'

  He turned back towards the jungle, lifted his arm and collapsed in a heap. I dragged him under the cover of a tree and gave him some water. He barely had the strength to swallow.

  'Time for a spell, Harry,' I said.

  'How far, would you say?'

  'Who knows? Ten miles?'

  'Oughta be enough.'

  I took a chocolate bar from my pack and fed half of it to him, a piece at a time. I ate the rest myself and smoked the greatest cigarette of my life. The distilled water left Dom Perignon for dead.